sorry Taure but that is absurd.
"Clear your mind" is NO INSTRUCTION.
its like the silly mind game: "do not think of donkey ears", its an impossible expectation.
If snape had spent even 5 minutes instructing him on WHAT to do (something he doesn't do in potions either) he might have had a chance, the way it is he had none.
Are you on a redeemed Snape crusade or why are you defending the idiot here? It's pretty much established canon that he doesn't teach.

Malfoy changes a lot in book 6. Before that he is always displayed as the useless ponce, who may or may not be good at potions, but regardless his plots are badly thought out and usually destroyed by his temprament. The only thing he does well is to abuse people and be defended by Snape.
In book 6 he is suddenly supposed to be patient and cunning, as well as capable of fixing a complicated piece of magic. It's one of the parts i dislike most about HBP....

 

Yes, but have you ever really tried at it? If you were to spend, for example, an hour every day practicing thinking of nothing, you'd get better at it.

I disagree, just as I disagree that meditation can be taught. Buddhist monks spend years practicing meditation, not being taught it. They may learn a few techniques in the beginning, but that which gets them good at it is the practice, not the techniques.

Yes, I am. After all, Snape was able to fool Voldemort for over 20 years. But more importantly, due to Harry's poor motivation to learn Occlumency, Harry's will power was not what it was in the Graveyard. Will power is related to desire, and Harry had no desire to succeed at Occlumency, whereas he had the greatest desire to fight Voldemort.

 

I was just thinking: if Harry had ONE adult that he trusted, just one person to confide in, he might have told someone the REASON that he wasn't trying with the Occlumency. Remember? Voldemort had already managed to convince him that he was getting important information through his scar - and that Occlumency would cut off that source of knowledge. Harry had incontrovertible proof of it, too. Mr. Weasley would have died if Harry had not been able to access Nagini's mind.

Harry knew that Ron would agree with ANYthing that would spite Snape, and Hermione would automatically urge him to trust anyone in authority. Neither of them is a voice of reason, or even capable of a decent argument. Why try either of them? To all appearances, Dumbledore had dropped him cold. The old man literally refused to meet his eye. For Months. With no explanation. Remus was out of touch, Sirius was out of touch and crazy. McG had, true to form, not paid any attention to his concerns about the Umbitch, and had actually warned him that complaining would get the professors fired.

I am Firmly Convinced that Snape used those lessons deliberately as a way to torture Harry. An antagonistic approach might (or might not) be mandated, but Snape CERTAINLY did not explain that to Harry. The kid is used to being hurt - he might have been much more cooperative if he had realised that there was a reason for it. In Harry's point of view, Snape was simply seizing an opportunity to continue his vicious attacks on a defenseless Gryff, continuing a habit (hobby?) that the jerk had started on the First Day of Class, and had never let up. Moreover, with Snape wandering at will through Harry's mind, there is no way a Master Legilimens could have missed what Umbridge was doing, or the frozen wasteland that was Harry's "pampered and coddled" homelife.

 

To be fair, there were many adults that Harry would have trusted with this information. He just didn't have a way to contact them, because of the Ministry.

How much more reason do you need than knowing that your mind is connected to an enemy much more powerful than you who wants to hurt and kill you, and that he could access your thoughts and mind if he became aware of it?

 

I think it's been firmly established in canon that Harry is a pussy, an idiot, and easily susceptible to love potions. Well, maybe not the last one.

If so many people learnt Occlumency (Christ, the Ferret managed it), then I think it's fair to say there's a book on it somewhere in the Hogwarts Library.

Which begs the question: why the fuck wasn't Hermione looking for it?!

 

True, I had originally thought that when one tried something, they attempted to do it with all their will power. Then I remembered we were talking about Harry Potter, so that argument is null and void.

We know Voldemort was already aware of it, as he would later use said connection to trick Harry into getting the prophecy for him. Or at least attempting to.

You have to at least know what you are supposed to be doing though, Buddhist monks know what they are doing when they are supposed to be meditating. CLEAR YOUR MIND isn't a firm objective for someone like Harry.

I think we can all pretty much agree that Harry would fail at just about everything possible, and occlumency is no exception. I still think that he should have been taught more theory or trained in some way more then just clear your mind.



We all know why Hermione wasn't looking for it; it wouldn't be convenient to the plot if Harry had another tutor with which to teach him occlumency. If he did, he couldn't have been tricked into the ministry, thus killing Sirius. Though truthfully, I never considered him a major character anyway. I mean, how much did harry really know him?

 

* narrows eyes *
I'm a woman - careful about the use of the word "pussy" when implying "weak-willed."

As for Malfoy learning it, well, I'D be motivated to learn if the alternative was getting Voldemort's attack-bitch mad at me. Besides, as his aunt, it's possible that she would explain what she's doing. She might even try to avoid his more private thoughts. Snape in NO Way tried to soften the experience for Harry. Didn't Harry end up collapsed on the floor a couple of times?

As for Hermione - well it IS a Half-Baked-Plot. If Hermione had been involved, then Harry would have leveled with her, they would have taught each other if that was At All possible, and they could have developed a degree of intimacy that would have left JKR's Chosen-Mate-For-Harry completely out of the running.


** By the way, I'm having A Lot of fun with this discussion - thanks for being the Antagonist, Taure! **

 

Hello? This is Bellatrix we're talking about. If anything she was most likely more brutal than Snape. No doubt the Cruciatus was applied at least once.

 

Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that. Thanks for the reality check.

I wonder what Draco had been told about his Aunt, in the years between her being jailed and the graveyard. Did she get lauded for being loyal to "The Dark Lord," while his parents managed to get off, or was he told that she was a violent fanatic who Should be kept out of circulation, or was she Not Discussed?

 

Too bad Snape never told Harry all this...

Moreover, your theory is, in your own words, pure conjecture.

I agree with Banner on Snape.

 

On the subject of willpower...

It's a bullshit idea. How can someone have more willpower than someone else?

 

Oh, but Snape did tell Harry that, because all that I've said can be summed up by "clear your mind".

And it is not entirely unbacked by canon.

We know now after DH that Snape was on the Order's side, and therefore would want Harry to succeed. Thus we can reasonably assume that Snape did not intentionally sabotage Harry's attempt to learn it and told him everything he would need to know. Thus "clear your mind" was enough. After all, he did give Harry some other information about it in his first lesson, so Snape clearly was not opposed to giving information he deemed necessary. His only mistake was his assumption that Harry would be intelligent enough to join the dots.

Occlumency's basis in willpower is also hinted at in HBP in the first DADA lesson, where Snape made a pointed remark about willpower while looking at Harry, implying that Harry's lack of willpower was the reason why he failed at occlumency.

 

You all seem to be forgetting one major thing: it's Harry we are talking about. Rowling purposefully made him a mediocre student because if he wasn't, what kind of story would this be? The hero always has to have his flaws. Harry is fool-hardy, quick to temper, and not magically smart like his mentor Dumbledore or brainy like Hermione. Bring all these facts to fifth year when he's being taught by a man he hates to do something that his head (Voldemort) is telling him is useless and exactly the opposite of what he wants to do and you expect him to pull through all gun-ho?

Also, I have the firm belief that Snape didn't teach him Occlumency specifically because of his hatred for James Potter and Harry by extension. Taure, I just can't believe that an art most Aurors know at least to a passable extent was taught to them during their boot camp with the words 'clear your mind.' Their should be some sort of method to the meditation and art, usually through willpower, not beating a child's mind in over and over until he can barely think straight.

 

Name one area of study that it doesn't apply to. Or as my Russian language instructor put it to our class, "Puftoreniya, mats ucheniya" (repetition is the mother of learning).
Let's hit some of the high points.

Maths- Check(everything from addition and subtraction up through the Calculus and beyond require drills to drive home the theory and practice - repetition is key here. If you argue otherwise you're insane.)

Languages- Yep, again, repetition is what your knowledge of the proper use of these.

Art- Again, repetition is key, noone just picks up a brush and is a master. It takes time, practice, and applicaittion just to get better.

Physical arts - Dancers, fighters, and sportsmen and women don't THINK about what they are doing, they practice and use muscle memory... which only comes about after repetition.

Humanities - Arguably they are the only area of learning where one might argue that repetition is not key... but even then they rely upon classes like logic, debate, language and research skills that ARE learned through repetition.

It's only an overgeneralization if it isn't true.

Priori incantatem is an side effect of brother wands meeting... it's not a spell.

But as a counter example look at his study on the Patronus... that took quite some time for him to get down. All spells appear to require either due dillegence in repetition to master, or supportive skills. To say he case the one spell the first time he tried can be taken as a benchmark on the ease with which the spell could be learnt by him. But that would also be testiment to his prior learning as well. I seriously doubt that 11 year old Harry could have done likewise... the difference is that the Harry able to cast the spell had years of magical schooling under his belt.

Occlumency, we were told in the story, is an obscure and difficult skill to learn, and in fact only Dumbledore and Snape were the only ones able to use it at Hogwarts. As such, it's reasonable to expect that instruction would go beyond a simple "clear your mind" with no instruction on what precisely that means. Does it mean an utterly blank mind devoid of thought and utterly passive. Or does it mean a mind where you rigidly control and cease every through in a regimented manner and ruthlessly squash all invasive throughts?... or is it something else entirely? There are MANY ways to interpret the command of "clear your mind".
Without instruction on what it means, or describing the sensation... it's utterly useless.

 

The instructions for the spell were right there on the page. Where were Harry's occlumency instructions? Oops, he didn't have any.
Harry has cast spells before. For five-plus years he's been taught the basics of casting a spell. There are the wand movements and incantation, et cetera... He knows how to approach casting a spell, since he's done it before. All there was to casting Sectumsempra was reading the incantation and wand movements and then plugging that information into what he already knows about how to cast spells.

Where was the basic knowledge of Occlumency? Shit, most of the people Harry talks to don't even seem to have ever heard of such things as Occlumency and Legilimency before. It's a totally new concept to him.

And your assertion that all there is to 'clear your mind' is 'clearing your mind' isn't pure conjecture?

I don't see where the two are even remotely similar. Priori Incantatum... that situation was basically a tug of war and there was a visual representation of success or failure right there in front of Harry, via that bead of light. After it starts to give one way or the other, you have some pretty obvious, instant feedback of what needs to be done.

Occlumency ain't even in the same ballpark and all Harry knew was that nothing he did worked. It was just an unrelenting attack with zero instruction.

Harry's lazy? Yes, a bit but what point would there be to not trying to learn Occlumency? He was forced to be there in the room with Snape and I'm certain Harry didn't want the man attacking him and rifling through all of his memories. Harry didn't just sit through that saying, "Nuh-uh, I don't wanna learn." Laziness didn't come into play in that classroom and there was nothing for Harry to practice later because he still hadn't learned ANTHING.

I mean, what exactly was he supposed to practice during his free time if he learned nothing in the classroom? That's like me shouting at a kid with no knowledge of math for an hour to do trigonometry equations, then sending him back to his room with no text book and telling him to practice. Practice what?

You can't lay it all on Harry's doorstep, Snape had no intentions of teaching him anything, he just wanted to punish James Potter's brat for coming out of the vagina that Snape himself wanted to come into. And he knew he could get away with it because the only one Harry could go to for help was Dumbledore and the old man was refusing to talk to him.

Bottom line, Snape was a prick and, regardless of what side of the war he was on, he was too much of an asshole to teach a vital skill to the only one who could win the war. That's epic scale douche-baggery.

I don't doubt for an instant that if someone else had been teaching Harry, he would have learned it.

Would that have kept Voldemort out of his head? Maybe, maybe not. After all, Dumbledore was really the only one who had any clue what was going on with that link and the old fuck wasn't talking. It could be that the link would act like a backdoor into Harry's head, no matter how good his Occlumency was.

And I suppose one could also create a vacuum-worthy spacecraft if I were to sum up the process by telling them to "Build a space shuttle"? Yes its hyperbole, but not entirely inaccurate.

That's horse shit! It's called biting off your nose to spite your face. It's been done before, it will be done again, even in life or death situations. Snape, Master Occlumens or not, is ruled by his emotions. His hatred of James Potter and infantile sense of entitlement vis a vis Lily direct his actions constantly.

And at the end of the day, that's still all pure conjecture on your part (hey, fair is fair).

If Occlumency is so simple, why was Snape the only one other than Dumbledore who could have taught Harry? It's not just an 'I trust Snape' issue. Presumably Albus trusts some of the Order members (shit, I hope so). Surely among the Order members there was someone else who knew it, if it's SO easy to learn. We have Moody who is a top notch auror and paranoiac and Shacklebolt who was a top level auror himself. If it's that easy, shouldn't basic occlumency be a requirement for reaching the top ranks in the government?

Maybe it's not so simple after all.

EDIT: And to be more on topic...
Draco is a complete jackass. He gets credit for nothing. NOTHING!
He, his mother and his father are all complete jackasses.

The moral of JKR's story is that you and your whole family can be a pack of complete jackasses, commit atrocities, but if you have enough money and influence, you can get away with it.

The bonus moral is you can be a complete prick and some sap will still name their kid after you (and another complete prick).

 

On the subject of willpower... look to heros in war that resisted revealing important information to the enemy even under torture when others did. One is strong willed... the other was weaker.

I'd say that yes... there are men and women that have far more will power than others. Enough that they could bear up under hardships that would break lesser men and women.

Then there's the measure of willpower between two althetes. The one who wants the victory more, who pushes himself harder... they win while the other loses. Step into a boxing ring with an evenly matched opponent... the one who wins will likely be the one with the greater will to succeed.

It those aren't a measure of will power... then I don't know what is.

 

So Draco learned Occlumency from a crazy bitch who likely hit him with a crucio when she was urked, while Harry didn't learn Occlumency from an angry bastard who did not curse him.

Draco outwits Harry in first year with their wizarding duel.

Draco admits a bunch of Death Eaters into Hogwarts without Dumbledore realizing his plans. (We know Dumbledore knew he was trying to kill him, but Dumbledore didn't have a clue about the cabinet)

Draco does not end up in Azkaban after Voldemort is killed.

Draco has got to be at least competent. Anyone who argues that he is less then competent is either basing his thoughts simpley on hatred of the charactor, rather then cannon evidence, or has his head placed firmly between the flapping cheaks of his ass.

 

How on earth DID he manage that? I count At Least five attempts at murder, not to mention letting a werewolf into a school, and he Just Walked? If he did get jailed, it wasn't for very long - Scorpius was the same age as Al. Still, Harry didn't seem enraged to see him, so I guess some form of justice was served. I guess.

 

I'd say the predestination paradox in PoA was the real reason he mastered the Patronus at age 13.

One was better at resisting pain than the other.

I may have more will power than Athlete #1, but he'll still beat me. Why? Because he trained, while I sat on my ass and angst'd.

You can't measure "will-power". It's a wishy-washy concept like bravery, hope, that sort of thing. To paraphrase Voldemort, "there is only power".

My personal theory regarding Priori Incantatem is that Harry was stronger than Voldemort, at that point in time. Canon clearly shows Harry is an average wizard, but remember when they dueled, Voldemort had newly regenerated his body, and his magical core was probably being recharged.

Or he just wasn't focusing his magic enough into the beam. Some shit like that. We'll just have to wait for the Media Whore to force-feed us more information.

 

I've read quite a lot of posts about how Snape was on the Order's side after all. Maybe he was, so what? It doesn't change the fact that he was down right horrible to Harry his entire life. People can make up ideas and what ifs all they want, but - in canon - the only instruction Harry received was "Clear your mind". Nothing more. Now we know that in class the students are given theory, examples, demonstrations, wand movements, ect. when doing spells. Where was any of that? Hell, where was the Occulmency textbook? There wasn't one. Snape used the Occulmency lessons to rifle through Harry's mind and torture him, its that simple. Now, you can have all the ideas you want and put them in your fanfics, but in canon "Clear you mind" was all Harry got. That's like teaching someone to sword fight by giving them a sword and saying "Defend yourself" or teaching someone to swim by throwing them in a pool and hoping they don't drown.

Throw in the fact that as far as Harry knew his visions gave him valuable intel with regards to what Voldie was doing and you have a very good reason for him NOT to want to learn Occulmency. Now if Dumbledore had told Harry his suspicions about his visions and Voldemort planting false intel/ect. then that would be different. But he didn't do that, he didn't tell Harry anything. Everyone he trusted was either ignoring him (Dumbledore and McGonagall) or was out of contact (Sirius). Hermione would have been a good choice to help him, but according to canon Occulmency was not very well known. Also, JKR wanted her with Ron so having her and Harry learn Occulmency together wasn't possible.

Bottom line, we can only go by what was specifically stated in canon and in canon all we got was "Clear your mind."